Found Footage Friday: PIRATA~! MS-1~! JAGUAR~! DEVIL~! FUJINAMI~! KOSHINAKA~! CHOSHU~! SAITO~!

Devil Masami vs. Jaguar Yokota AJW 9/7/83

Kadaveri: I think the context of this match finally surfacing needs a bit of explanation for those who aren't 80s Joshi nerds. Jaguar Yokota and Devil Masami were the top two stars of AJW in the 1981-84 period in between Jackie Sato retiring and the Crush Gals becoming megastars. This WWWA Singles Title match was the main event to one of the biggest shows of the era and essentially the blowoff to their feud, which goes back at least as far as them feuding over the AJW Junior Title in 1980. Jaguar & Devil went on to form the tag team 'Empress Duo' and never wrestled each other in a singles match again.

Sadly though, the match was missing. The source for most of the early 80s AJW footage you'll see online is one Japanese guy's collection of home-recorded VHS tapes of AJW broadcasts on Fuji TV. I got in contact with him a few years ago and specifically asked him if he had this match, as I noticed a Crush Gals vs. Mimi Hagiwara & Noriyo Tateno match (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_qqf3xDkrE) from the same show was circulating. Turns out that back in 1983 when recording the episode he'd mistakenly inserted a tape with only about 25 minutes left, so we got the first match of the episode but then it cut off and the main event wasn't recorded. Imagine making a little error like that, and finding out someone from another continent is upset about it 40 years later. It's far from the only big match of that era missing but I'd say it's the most historically important one. I'd hoped for years that surely someone else had recorded and kept a copy, but most of these older Japanese fans aren't very online so this hypothetical person might not even be aware that they have something rare.

In more recent times there have been different people uploading their own recordings of 80s AJW broadcasts to YouTube, which has filled a few gaps. You might see me in the comments asking if they have the 1983 Jaguar vs. Devil Title match, but to no avail. Despite there being no footage, I felt this match was important enough then when I made the 1980s Joshi Set last year I inserted a magazine description of the match into the video (https://vkvideo.ru/playlist/640112534_2/video640112534_456239022) to let everyone know the match happened, rather than just disregarding it entirely.

So for decades, all we had to go on to learn about this match was descriptions in Japanese media at the time, and references to it in future interviews. When Devil Masami defeated Dump Matsumoto to win the WWWA Singles Title in 1985, she referenced this match in her post-match interview, saying that she felt her performance had made up for her deporable display in the 1983 bout, where she was so upset about losing that she'd threatened to quit there and then. At the time, AJW was still running a strange mix of worked pro-wrestling with an element of legitimate competition. Specifically, while most matches were entirely worked, sometimes they'd do matches where the majority was worked for entertainment purposes, but there was no pre-determined winner. Rather, after some kind of signal had been given, the wrestlers would take turns to try and legitimately pin the other for a 3 count.

Then in July 2024, this Japanese blogger uploaded clips from the match, saying that someone who had a copy invited him to his house to watch it and allowed him to record some moments on his phone.  https://ameblo.jp/kimumasa992/entry-12860724586.html I only had to watch a few seconds of the clips to verify that this indeed was the 9/7/83 title match. Whether this directly led to the full match being uploaded isn't clear, but it's possible the buzz among the tiny number of 80s Joshi nerds about this footage being confirmed to exist caught the ear of the mysterious uploader who put up the whole broadcast several months later.

Now to the match itself. The match length was 38:26, with 25 minutes shown on the TV edit. My more wider thoughts on it is that it changes my ideas on the development of AJW's house style by quite a bit. My working theory at the moment is that in early 1984 we saw their working style(s) diverge into what ended being the most varied but somehow still cohesive wrestling products of the era.

Firstly, there was an escalation in quickening the pace of matches and adding innovative moves, which brought us the style most associated with Jaguar Yokota, the Crush Gals and the Jumping Bomb Angels.
Secondly, while brawls and evil cheating heels totally existed beforehand, Dump Matsumoto kept that style relevant by upping the ante considerable, adding horror elements and a level of unhinged spectacle far beyond anything the likes of Abdullah the Butcher ever did. Thirdly, in what feels like a restraining move on the other two trends (even if not conscious), there was a movement (in big title matches especially) towards slower, epic feeling matches based around holds (taking some influence from early shoot style) and longer control segments compared to the far more fluid Joshi house style. I associate this more with Devil Masami, but Yukari Omori also excelled in this.

What's thrown me off about this one is, while Devil Masami was still in her uber-heel phase here, this match is actually fought more like a 'Style Three' type of match that I thought didn't come until around a year later. There's barely any dirty play from her at all in fact, even though she doesn't do her turn from heel to 'tweener' until a big angle in February 1984. So I think this match is in fact a first draft in front of a live audience of the style that really peaked in the Crush Gals boom era of 1985-86. Also, this is before the UWF's first show, so while I do know that shoot style did influence some AJW wrestlers a bit after this, it clearly wasn't the only thing going on.

We get an opening flurry in the first couple of minutes where both wrestlers get to throw some offense but to little effect, and then things settle down and for the next ten minutes this is very grounded wrestling. Sometimes they're on the mat exchanging holds, and they switch things up by taking to their feet for tests of strength, but the one consistent thread is that Jaguar is the superior wrestler. Devil is competitive and gets ahead a few times, but Jaguar always comes out on top in these exchanges. There's a familiar moment where Jaguar has Devil in a facedown leglock and Devil just can't break out of it and tries going for the ropes, familiar because Devil would put Chigusa Nagayo in a similar predicament in their big title match two years later.

Eventually Devil needs to break this dynamic and she does it by throwing Jaguar headfirst into the ring post and throws her into some chairs on the outside. Within  the context of the match I guess this is a dirty play, but watching Devil up to this point with her liberal use of weapons and outside interference, it barely counts.

This doesn't work well for Devil though. Jaguar flies back into the ring and unloads some big flying offense on her before taking back control and getting her on the mat stuck in a hold again. It's an unconventional layout in that Jaguar is the smaller, faster babyface, but actually she's the one who's trying to keep things grounded and slowed down with Devil fighting from underneath. So it feels like she's the one whose comeback has been built to when she manages to counter Jaguar's hold with a headscissors and then hits a cool seated-piledriver like move for her first protracted segment of offense of the match. We get some feats of strength with her big delayed bodyslams but soon they're back on the mat but Devil has Jaguar grounded now. Her camel clutch feels like such a more heelish hold than anything Jaguar did however. But this just leads up to what I think is the match highlight, one of the sickest ganso bombs I've ever seen it's borderline attempted murder. Devil just plants Jaguar straight down on her head and Jaguar stays down looking like she'd had the life knocked out of her.

The big ganso bomb changes the match completely. The next section is all Devil-dominance and Jaguar is selling like she's at 50% energy at most for the next several minutes. It's not the kind of 'holding a specific body part' selling we're more used to in modern times, just a general sense of being out of it and just about holding on to survive. Jaguar does get in a counter by hitting a backdrop, but is too hurt to capitalise and they tease a double KO for a bit before they're both up (Devil actually gets up first). Jaguar also tries hiding out on the outside to recover, making the most of the 20 count. It's a really good selling performance. Bear in mind we are missing about 13 minutes of the match (I assume nothing was cut from here on as it's the finishing stretch and the time calls add up), so the exhaustion on display probably made a bit more sense if we were seeing this in full.

Now we get to the spicy bit. The ring announcer makes the call for 35 minutes passed, and Devil goes for the win as per the secret rules. She stands horizontally to Jaguar, who is lying flat back on the match, and Devil just goes down flat to try and hold her down for the 3 count. On the replay, I have to admit, it looks like Jaguar cheats a little bit. The rule was that you're not allowed to try to bridge out until the cover has already been applied, but she goes up a split second before. Might not have made a difference, but Jaguar is able to turn onto her front and keep herself in the match. It's her turn to try to win next. Devil again goes for a cover, but those in the know will see she wasn't trying to win this time, it's a spot for Jaguar to do her signature bridge out straight to her feet to come running off the ropes, which she follows with a very nice jump over Devil's head (she gets impressive height on it) to get back into the match. Her turn is next

The spiciness continues. Jaguar hits a butterfly suplex and she goes for the win as per the rules. Devil's shoulders are clearly down as Jaguar begins the cover, and she tries to fight her way out of it but can only get one shoulder up at any one time. There's an almighty struggle over this, but Jaguar definitely does manage to pin Devil's shoulders for a 2 count. But a 3? Well, this video quality isn't great so it's not entirely clear, but it does look to me that Devil's shoulder was up just before the 3. Anyway, Devil was convinced her shoulder was up and was outraged. I've read all about this incident but never seen it for myself, with Devil saying the referee was biased and Jaguar says Devil was just mad she lost. But she goes right over the announcer table to scream at Commission Ueda (who isn't just an on-screen authority, he was actually the most powerful person in the company who wasn't a Matsunaga) that she's been screwed.

While it would still be the norm for rookie matches, this would be the last time AJW had a World Title be decided by shoot-pin rules. Which is another thing which makes this match historically significant and I'm so glad we finally got to see it. While that aspect of the company would be downplayed going forward, they also created a template for the kind of epic title match that AJW would really specialise in over the next few years. This is a lot rougher than the later matches, there are some lulls in the action (I mean in terms of being captivating, not literal movement) and it feels like it'd take a little while longer for the AJW crew to fully figure out how to get the most out of this style. I'd say the 7/19/82 match between these two is still probably the better match, albeit a very different one. It feels a bit weird to give this a star rating considering the context, but I'm going to give this a flat 4. But for it's place in history this is a must watch for anyone interested in 80s Joshi. I'm so happy this has finally surfaced.

MD:  To my credit, I am back in 1979 still, right? And while I've seen the Dump stuff that's canonical, I'm less versed on this stuff. But this is a big match, and a lost match, and we'll jump right in. It really felt like a title match and a struggle, especially the holds where it was obvious just looking at Masami and Yokota just how much effort they were putting into them, and especially the finish which had Yokota forcing Masami's shoulders down almost from force of will alone (or as Kad pointed out, from true force alone). This had kinetic action that ground back into the holds in a way that gave the match substance. It never broke down into chaos or interference. It always went back to the center and therefore it never lost its way.

Throughout the match, Yokota would get an advantage with speed and grit, often times just throwing her body at Masami (which is really how the match started), and then Masami would grind her down with power (again, how the match started) and bombs. Some of the specific holds really worked for me, such as the way they were able to trade bodyscissors early, working basically all the way around the world shifting holds and positions until they switched places on who had on the bodyscissors. 

Masami would drive Yokota out of the ring or leave her laying, but Yokota came back again and again. The comeback towards the end had her basically vault straight up over Masami's head before hitting a rana. Even then Masami shut her down and tossed her off the second rope from a fireman's carry. So while it was all grounded, they built to some pretty big spots, before the finish which was scrappy as could be and still felt contested nonetheless. I don't know if those shoulders were down.

Riki Choshu/Masa Saito vs. Tatsumi Fujinami/Shiro Koshinaka 9/5/88

MD: This one's on us. We've had access to this HH since 2018 or whatever but I don't think anyone actually gave it a good look. It's the IWGP Heavyweight champion and the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion up against the tag champs for the belts. And it's really good and goes twice as long as I expected. 

After some opening title match feeling out between Saito and Fujinami (two of the most credible guys ever so it was good like you'd expect), Shiro wants to tag in against Choshu and we're off to the races. Koshinaka is a guy that I like a lot more in tags than singles. He (and Takano/Cobra) were really expected to be the heirs to Tiger Mask in having exciting, over the top Jr. Title matches and you really end up with a lot of noise. But he was a plucky underdog with a special connection with the crowd and a real sense of theatricality. Earlier in 88, he started being the only guy in the promotion (not even Inoki) who would sometimes "Hulk Up" and the fans couldn't get enough of it.

Here he quickly got outgunned by the superior hierarchical forces and what we ended up with was a tale of survival as he tried to punch his way out of first Saito's Prison Lock and then Choshu's Scorpion. There's probably nothing the fans in 88 New Japan would eat up more than someone fighting valiantly against holds like that and at one point they were clapping along to each valiant Koshinaka punch in a way that I'm not sure I've seen them do before. They cycled through this twice until, fighting a Scorpion attempt, Koshinaka was able to crawl over and make the tag.  

I thought things would go home shortly hereafter (once Koshinaka recovered enough to make it back in of course) and there was a bit of that, with Fujinami having to survive some of the holds Koshinaka fought out of as they targeted his knee. Shiro did come back in and they had the advantage for a while, but they were fighting from a deficit. It was Fujinami that got overwhelmed instead, posted on the outside by Saito and opened up to create a dramatic (and surprising) next act to the match as Saito bit the wound and Fujinami fought for his life.

Koshinaka tries to intervene and got trapped in the ropes just as Fujinami turned the tide, fighting off both Saito and Choshu until Choshu's lariat finally prevailed. Super dramatic stuff, the sort of which you can only get out of New Japan at its best. 

Pirata Morgan vs. MS-1 (hair vs hair) CMLL 3/15/91

MD: There's a moment at the end which is honestly remarkable and we're going to lead with that. After a solid tercera where I'm not sure MS-1's selling was warranted, but they sort of made you go for it anyway, Morgan gets a small package through countering a move for the pin. The commentary says that this move was invented by Lex Luger, champion of the world, and is called the Total Package. Honestly, this was worth dusting off just for that.

This is in the found, or at the very least, underlooked category. I'm sure most people haven't seen it. It's interesting but doesn't rise to the level you'd want it to, mainly due to some narrative quirks. It has some things you almost never see in a hair match, and despite Morgan wearing white with his black, it doesn't get quite as bloody as I thought it would.

We come in with MS-1 controlling in the primera. He is, of course, good at that. Morgan goes for a few comebacks but the ref gets in his way; it's that kind of match. They make a big deal out of the fact Morgan doesn't have a second. After MS-1 puts him away to win the first fall, he absolutely cracks him on the post on the outside. They made it sound as loud as any shot like that I've ever heard but then there isn't the massive amount of blood to follow it up. Morgan tries to come back with some big shots but the ref again gets in his way, which feels like an inversion to earlier apuestas matches. It'd be like the ref disrupting things after Chicana's big comeback punch vs MS-1. It just felt wrong.

As the segunda goes on, MS-1 keeps pulling Morgan up, which you almost never see in a hair match. He steps on his chest and then steps off before the three, that sort of thing. Eventually, Morgan tries coming back again and this time the ref pushes him out of the ring. That was the cue for Morgan's brother and Hombre Bala to come out to second him which symbolically turns the tide of the match and leads to his big comeback and some big dives before the finish. Along the way, there are some other weird quirks like Morgan rolling in the ring to get into position and some rope running that felt out of place, but in general, it ends well with that famous move invented by Luger and the fans are happy with the outcome. It all could have been just a bit more grounded and grisly though. 

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Found Footage Friday: NJPW 85~! DANCING ANDRE~! CAPTAIN REDNECK~! INOKI~! BACKLUND~! SHARPE~! ADONIS~! HIRO~!

NJPW 5/18/85

Masked Superstar vs. Kim Su Hong (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbKieuAaBEQ)

MD: Kim is a South Korean wrestler who shows up on these NJPW cards now and again. I can't say that he stands out much. I love Eadie, love him, one of my favorites, but in New Japan he is so often a gatekeeper, just an incredibly credible wall for people to push off against. He takes 90% of this. Still some neat small things like losing Kim early and then claiming he was oiled up. That sort of being alive within the match. All of his stuff looks mean and credible with both a killer neckbreaker and then a twisting drop down into a front facelock. He also whacks him with something outside of the ring to big effect. Kim does come back late and his stuff is middling, some good, some bad. Superstar drops down on him and nails him with a clothesline to end it.

ER: We don't have Hashimoto/Sano, or the Canek/Enrique Vera tag, but we have Masked Superstar throwing Finlay level clubs to Su Hong's chest and killer knees to the side of the head. I liked how Superstar held the ropes to block a single leg and just went right back to clubbing. Superstar kind of jams Su Hong up on his small pieces of offense, running too hard into dropkicks that really shouldn't have moved him but looked worse with how he treated them. His clothesline looked like a match finishing clothesline and there's a good chance I won't watch a Kim Su Hong match the rest of my life. 

Super Strong Machine vs. Tony St. Clair (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pADWavSmgM)

MD: Just a credible back and forth match. I wouldn't say any of the transitions were particularly interesting but everything looked good. SSM is a tank and St. Clair can hold his own. They traded advantages and holds. Machine had a nice leaping headbutt off the ropes and a killer clothesline. St. Clair turned a headlock into a backbreaker (by slipping out, not a Robinson backbreaker). Good finishing stretch where St. Clair got a nearfall on a sunset flip in but Machine was able to get a German for the win. Wakamatsu got involved pre-match even though Machine wanted nothing to do with him and then tried to attack SSM post match only to get thrashed for his trouble. Added a little spice to what would have otherwise been a meaty but straightforward midcard match.

ER: This crowd is so fired up for Super Strong Machine. He was getting clapping Misawa-type chants during his entrance. I wasn't expecting Tony St. Clair to look larger than Strong Machine. My mental pictures don't always give me accurate reads but both are 15-20 pounds in the opposite direction I picture them. Made it look good when Tony started hitting Machine. SSM can work real tough and St. Clair looked like he was moving him good with his back elbow and uppercut, sharp front chancery. His dropkick pushes up under the chin and he makes a whip into the buckles look like it made all his limbs go briefly numb. I like the way these two hit each other. St. Clair is great at leaning into lariats while selling how much he doesn't like taking them. Strong Machine has one of my favorite German suplexes. Both of them work exactly how Bret Hart would have worked New Japan in 1994. 

Kengo Kimura/Seiji Sakaguchi vs. Adrian Adonis/Dick Murdoch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bqyZdnuwVU)

MD: Honestly, this is yet another all time Murdoch performance, and on a house show too. Granted, the stuff I loved here was stuff Meltzer wouldn't have liked anyway but what are you going to do about it. For instance, there's a moment in the middle where Sakaguchi's on a rampage. He takes out Adonis and then goes to the apron to get Murdoch and Murdoch moves to the other side of the post and the crowd cracks up. It's great. But it's such a tiny little wrestling thing. His reactions are great throughout. The way he takes the Inazuma leg lariat by covering his face like he'd just lost his nose is amazing. Dick Murdoch. Captain Redneck, or as they call him in NJPW, the Super Rodeo Machine.

This had a great heat on Kimura where he kept almost coming back and Murdoch and Adonis would just make a quick tag. Eventually, instead of going for a hold, he threw a dropkick instead and made it to Sakaguchi. They did another bit of heat on Kimura and then a big hot comeback. Everything ended up thrown out. Post match they had both a great bit with a chair and being afraid of it and an even better one of double elbowing the ref. Great stuff.

ER: Great Dick Murdoch handheld matches are the best, because not only do you get to see Dick Murdoch being the greatest pro wrestler, but it makes me think of DEAN. To take us back at least 15 years, the moment I always remember from Segunda Caida Radio - something I am not sure exists online anymore, but was loved by all the real SC Heads - was DEAN making fun of Meltzer for thinking Dick Murdoch was a guy who only worked for the cameras. By then we had a lot of handheld footage and had all seen Murdoch wrestling exactly the same as in all of his great matches. DEAN had seen Murdoch live. We were all talking about how great Dick Murdoch was, but DEAN was the one who saw him live and knew how good he was off camera. I always think about DEAN doing a bit as Murdoch, where he's dogging it in Korakuen and does a Don Knotts reaction when he sees a Japanese guy in the crowd with a huge 1985 camcorder.  

This is the only match on this show that doesn't have a listed cagematch runtime, and I didn't realize it would be the longest match of the show. And in that time, Dick Murdoch kept putting on a performance that grew in elegance the longer they went, arguably peaking two minutes after the count out when he got cheers for beating up the referee and then running shenanigans around a chair swinging Kengo Kimura. The match goes long enough that we get several momentum shifts and each one peaks the action and story and Murdoch grows with the story. I think my favorite part was when he had been worked over for awhile and got to tag out, and he stayed in the ring shaking out and rubbing his arm after tagging in Adonis, not participating in but watching Adonis lay a beating on Kimura. The cattle branding looked like a wild rapids ride, his punches matched the energy at all times, and he sold Kimura's like they were the stiffest punches of the match. The fans treated him after the match like a charming folk hero. 

The Cobra (c) vs. Hiro Saito (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIud5l0HlGc)

 

MD: I am not at all a Cobra guy. I think some of his Rocco matches are really bad, for instance, as he tried to fill a post-Tiger Mask gap and ended up with the worst of two worlds. A lack of substance and not even all that much style. Action for the sake of action and the action tends to frankly just be okay. This was great though, and so much of that was on the contrast. Saito is the prototypical cruiserweight bully and he gave everything weight and heft as the two of them threw everything they had at each other.

 

That meant that when Cobra was going to do an unnecessary backflip charging at Saito in the corner, Saito would come back and take his head off with a lariat. Or if he'd get pushed off after a kick and do another backflip within the ring, Saito would dropkick him out and crush him with a dive. They worked it like a title match starting with holds and going back to them, building to big spots and exchanges, with meaningful momentum shifts usually based around a big reversal/mistake/missed move. As time went on they traded some really great pile drivers and the dives you'd expect. Saito got a German mid match but couldn't put away with it and down the stretch Cobra finally escalated to a Tiger Suplex for a win. Very good lost Jr. Heavyweight Title match.

ER: We don't really talk much about how cool Hiro Saito is, and for how long he was cool. He's cool in all the eras. He was cool when I started getting New Japan tapes in 2000, and he was a bleach blond black beard surf punk with a tight bod, punk groupies and surf licks. Cobra feels like a throwback in 1985 by comparison, and it's punk scum vs. Mil Mascaras. Cobra's Mil hits hard, and Saito keeps spiking Mil with martinetes. The crowd was real into Saito's grounded piledriver when Cobra tried standing out of a headscissors, and they kept coming alive when they see how tough and well worked. I knew it was really good when Cobra's cravat into a stump puller and how Saito slowly powers out of it by eventually digging into Cobra's mask and hitting a GREAT fistdrop. Direct, hard. His piledriver after is perfect. Two kids in the crowd invent TomK's famous Dueling Chant 15 years before he did while Saito takes a crazy bump getting dropkicked to the floor. Cobra's kip up to dropkick is as beautiful as anything by our most graceful lucha legends. Saito hits a massive tope that is what you want a tope to be. I was going to write about how Cobra's flying offense isn't as good as his matwork and hitting but then he hits a piledriver so good that I felt I shouldn't harp on his lesser offense. Hiro Saito is so good. He's such a hard bumper, and strong, and fast. His forceful kickout just after 3 is the exact right energy. 

Andre the Giant vs. King Kong Bundy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kntbQ5SjUs)

 

MD: I wasn't going to cover this one since it was already out there, but it's pretty remarkable. My gut says that this was during the period where Andre was really breaking down, before his surgery and the switch to the singlet, but also before he really figured out how to work his late era style. So he was left in there against Bundy not entirely sure what he could or couldn't do. And what he ended up doing was being as entertaining as humanly possible. Yes, they did the bit where Bundy walks up the ropes to try to escape a hold and gets dropped, but Andre's mannerisms and little dance moves in this one are all over the place. Little shuffle steps. Hand motions. Weird faces. Outright dancing. He doesn't do the Fargo Strut but basically everything else you can imagine. And the fans do respond to it. I mean, who knows. Maybe he was just ribbing, maybe he was drunk, but I've only ever seen him do one or two of these little crazy finger motions or screw around like this, not build a whole match around it.

ER: I think every single Andre match I write about has me talking about some little thing I've never seen Andre do before, and I always mean it. But this Andre is an entirely new Andre. This is a house show taped by some saint, and without it I'm not sure we ever get to see Andre as a dancing babyface. It's incredible. I've seen Andre do something that could be considered sassy before but never a full match of him working as Dusty Rhodes. It's incredible. It doesn't start right away, but when it starts it does not stop. It feels like it's going to be your standard great Andre performance, smothering the humongous Bundy, muscling him into corners, hooking him in heavy sleepers, and I was excited about how he was going to sell for Bundy's comebacks. But when things take a turn, they really take a turn. I certainly was not expecting Bundy to walk up the ropes like Bret when Andre had a sleeper locked on, a real Dig Up mentality, and when Andre just drops the big man flat the crowd erupts. 

That's when Quirky Andre comes out. He makes the cuckoo sign, twirling his finger around his ear, and then does a kind of soft shoe routine, a little tap dance with a hard final step, like he's letting everyone in on his bit. If he'd had a cane and top hat it only would have made more sense. He keeps it up. While holding Bundy in another standing choke, he floats some butterfly steps, skipping in place in a movement that I have not once seen Andre do. He becomes Dusty Rhodes, flip flopping and flying. Bundy himself seems confused, he doesn't seem to understand the timing of the dancing and the strikes, leaning out of Andre's first punch after a perfect dance, so Andre has to catch him even harder with a backhand. This is truly an Andre I've never seen. Bundy takes a huge bump over the top to the floor and eventually just leaves, but not before more Andre dancing. How does history's greatest wrestler keep raising his stock? You think you've seen everything the biggest spectacle in wrestling history has done, but he keeps bringing out new tricks. This is no different than if a dancing babyface Stan Hansen match had just been discovered. It's bizarre, it's great, it's nothing you've seen. It's Andre.   

Bob Backlund/Iron Mike Sharpe vs. Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsW8GclZnt4)

 

MD: Honestly, I was here for Backlund vs Inoki and we really don't get that. What we do get is very good though. A lot of it is Sharpe being as vocal as humanly possible in a ring but entertaining and credible. Most of the rest, though, is Fujinami vs Backland and of course they match up so well. They matched up well years earlier and they match up even better now that Fujinami is a credible heavyweight. Right place, right time, smooth, slick, imapctful. And yes, they do a great short arm scissors sequence leading to the Gotch lift, just like you'd want. I just wanted a little bit more Inoki in here though. 

ER: I went into this wanting the most Popeye noises ever heard in one wrestling match. This was our chance. I wanted to hear Backlund and Iron Mike Oh-Whoa-Whoa-Whoaing all over the ring in the only time these two ever tagged. But we didn't get that. Backlund ceded the constant vocals to Sharpe and Sharpe ran with them. Backlund was shockingly silent. 1985 Backlund is interesting. It's his first year at sea after his long reign on top. I wonder what drove him to wrestle that year, seeing how much he pulled back for several years after. He surely could have been working regular Japan schedules had he wanted to, so he clearly just didn't want to. He only worked this one short New Japan tour and now we have another small piece of it. Sharpe vs. Inoki is an amusing footnote. You look at this tag and you've never seen a more obvious Taking the Fall guy than Iron Mike. Backlund's matwork with Fujinami was something I could have seen a lot more of. The crowd was so into Backlund's slow powerful reversals, but most of this tag felt like it was just about to kick into gear and never really did.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE THE GIANT

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Masashi Aoyagi May Be Crazy But He Ain't No Fool

Masashi Aoyagi vs. Tatsumi Fujinami NJPW 6/12/91 - GREAT

PAS: This was a different style fight, which is the NJPW version of a worked shoot/shootstyle match. This was a nifty styles clash with Aoyagi lacing Fujinami with kicks to thigh and to the ribs, and Fujinami trying to get close enough to take him down. There was a sick spot where Fujinami stepped into a kick with a forearm strike, and then bodied Fujinami with Gi assisted judo throws, including using Aoyagi's gi to nearly choke him out. The actually finish was Fujinami using a figure four choke to get Aoyagi to tap, but that Gi choke was way sicker. About five minutes long but a cool five minutes.

Masashi Aoyagi vs. Kantaro Hoshino NJPW 11/11/91 - FUN

PAS: When you see two chaos agents like this lined up against each other, you are expecting a whirlwind. This was more of a tempest in a teacup. Hoshino comes out totally fired up, but after the first minute or so he really slows it down and it never regains the tempo. There was some stiff stuff, and it got a little chippy, but every time it felt like it was going to boil, they took it back to simmer. We even had Hoshino with the dickish kickout right at three to minimize Aoyagi's win. I was so amped when I saw this match was available, and while it had enough stuff to move it past SKIPPABLE, it was well beneath what I was hoping for. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara Will Gather All the Nations

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Seiji Sakaguchi/Kantaro Hoshino/Antonio Inoki/Keiji Muto vs. Akira Maeda/Kengo Kimura/Super Strong Machine/Riki Choshu/Tatsumi Fujinami NJPW 8/19/87- EPIC

These multi-man elimination 80s NJ matches are as certified as a wrestling match gets. At this point New Japan had shifted from the UWF vs. NJ feud, into kind of a generations feud, with Maeda on one side and Fujiwara on the other, and Choshu and Fujinami teaming up. Young Muto is a bit out of place repping the old school, which was a fun wrinkle to this match. The energy of these matches is always a standout, everyone is super charged and going at it with such intensity. Hoshino is always a highlight, this little sawed off batamweight getting into everyones face with great looking punches. Our guy Fujiwara gets some great match ups, throwing hands with Kimura, diving in and out of holds with Fujinami. Fujiwara is such a great slow paced technical worker, it is fun to see him thrown into a whirlwind like this. I love how Choshu is used at this time, that lariat is a game ender and the threat of it is always there.  There were some great eliminations, including Maeda calling Inoki into the ring squaring off with him, and eventually sacrificing himself with a headscissors which sent them both over the top rope. The match ended up with Muto against Fujinami and Choshu, and that is drawing dead, Muto had a moment or two, but eventually fell. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Masaji Aoyagi WDF 8/9/97-GREAT

A little minor key for a pair of guys who have the capacity to blow it out, but it had a lot of nifty stuff in there. I always dig kickboxer Fujiwara and it was fun to watch him square off with Aoyagi and realized that he didn't want the smoke. Similarly Aoyagi didn't want to be down on the mat with Fujiwara, to the point where he takes a bite of Fujiwara's leg while he is in a cross armbreaker. I really liked the finish with Fujiwara just dragging Aoyagi down to the mat, transitioning into side control, moving to his back and just sinking in a rear naked choke, it felt like the way a mid 2000s MMA fight with a  jujitsu black belt tapping a kickboxer who didn't train ground defense. Both of these guys are such great spectacle wrestlers, I was hoping for something bigger, but I dug what we got.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI

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Found Footage Friday: KIMURA~! FUJINAMI~! INOKI~! HULK~! CHOSHU~! YATSU~! KHAN~! MAEDA~!

Kengo Kimura vs. Tatsumi Fujinami 11/19/82 NJPW

 

MD: Another day, another Japanese HH channel. This one feels particularly interesting as it's a new challenge by Kimura for Fujinami's title and in some ways it feels like a precursor to their 86/87 singles feud after they have great success as a tag team. Kimura comes in with a chip on his shoulder, refusing to shake Fujinami's hand and then immediately bypassing the early feeling out process for a belly-to-back and a jumping kick to the head off the top. Throughout this match, Kimura would strike first, but Fujinami would shut him down until slowly, surely, he rose to a level of competitiveness and likely anger to meet him in the middle. Case in point, Fujinami would wrestle his way back into the match, containing Kimura, but Kengo would refuse to break clean in the ropes, slapping at Fujinami multiple times before Fujinami started to return the favor. No matter how much aggression Kimura showed, Fujinami could hit a dropkick out of nowhere and get back in it. Eventually, Fujinami had enough and started working at the leg. Kimura took advantage of that eventually by catching a kick and hitting a dragon screw. That opened Fujinami up for a pile driver. He was able to fight back though, reversing a whip into the rails on the floor before eventually taking over just enough to hit a belly-to-back (with a close kickout) for the win. I know it took a few more years for it to all bubble over, but Kimura did not look like a guy who fully got it all out of his system here. Definitely an interesting piece of the puzzle.

Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami/Akira Maeda vs. Riki Choshu/Yoshiaki Yatsu/Animal Hamaguchi NJPW 10/19/83

MD: I've seen a bunch of these tags and six-mans from this feud but I don't have a chronological sense of everything and how this one fits in. The universal traits are all there though. Over time, six-man tags have been about a lot of different things. Right now, very often, they're an opportunity to get in as many spots as possible, to keep cycling through to ensure that the action never ends. Here though, it was all about the mood of danger. If you got too close to Choshu's corner, you were going to pay. If you couldn't stop them from pulling you back in that direction, you would pay. The extra person took up an extra ten, fifteen percent of the apron and created an additional danger zone. Likewise, if you were able to roll towards your corner desperately, there was that much more chance you'd be able to tag your partner. The physical space of the ring had a different value assigned to it than in normal tag matches and they leveraged that value to create an overarching sense of peril and opportunity. It's fun to watch it play out in the moment. Everyone had a chance to face everyone else here. Maeda got to hit his suplexes and spin wheel kick, Fujinami his dropkicks, Choshu to throw some lariats. Obviously, the most electric pairings were Inoki vs Choshu and Fujinami vs Choshu, but everything felt dynamic. There was a moment where they were able to down Inoki with a couple of double teams (which contrasted with the moment early on where Inoki shrugged off a double headbutt to burst out of their corner), and Choshu, sensing the opportunity rushed at full speed towards him to lock on a Scorpion as only he could. Choshu just had an extra theatrical gear he could tap into that electrified the crowd and made everything feel larger than life, and of course, if he was doing with Inoki, the effect was multiplied. Things broke down eventually, as you'd imagine, but Inoki got at least a moral win by throwing everyone out as the bell rang. Nothing particularly stood out here relative to other matches in this series but it's all good so that's ok.

Antonio Inoki/Hulk Hogan/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Killer Khan/Tiger Toguchi/Yoshiaki Yatsu NJPW 11/19/83

MD: What stands out immediately is just how hot the crowd was for this, or at least how hot they were for Hogan and most especially Inoki. He was getting chants far before arriving and when he and Hogan came out in matching robes, the place went nuts. This was more or less back and forth but I didn't agree with all of the backs and all of the forths. Starting with Fujinami and Toguchi made sense. Things cycled around with a slight good guy advantage until Khan carried Fujinami over to his corner so they could double team (a fireman's carry clubber followed by an Argentinian backbreaker clubber). Then the other side cycled around on Fujinami until he came back on Khan. That was unfortunate. I don't mind double heat with some comeback/control in the middle but it would have been better if it was, let's say, Yatsu getting his leg worked over as opposed to the monster. There was a bit of a foreboding feeling as it cycled back around to Fujinami doing it as you just knew Khan would come back, and of course, he did. Eventually Fujinami got a hot tag and Inoki and Hogan cleared house. Things built to Hogan vs Yatsu, which went about as you'd expect. At one point, Yatsu half ducked an Axe Bomber and I'm not sure Hogan expected it as he followed up with some big clubbers before doing it again. Things devolved into chaos and everyone getting counted out shortly thereafter. Hogan was repeating himself a couple of times and Yatsu especially wasn't there yet, but they were very, very over and that's always fun to watch.

ER: A very entertaining Tiger Toguchi and Killer Khan match, with them and Yatsu carrying a kind of uninspired Hogan and Inoki (Fujinami was plenty inspired). Inoki has this major presence and the crowd is dying for him, so it's funny when he finally gets into the match and just ices everything down with a standing leglock. 1983 Hogan in Japan has that Bodybuilder Dauber Dybinski posture, lumbering around and looking like a neanderthal with no juice. It's alarming how wild the crowd is for Hogan as he doesn't acknowledge them once the entire match. But if Hogan was a first year Batista and Inoki was mostly indifferent, Toguchi and Khan knew how to keep this moving. 

Toguchi looks like the largest possible Japanese member of Mamas and the Papas and I love how he never hesitates to step to Hogan or Inoki. The longer the match goes, the bigger Toguchi bumps, and he has this great Clumsy Taue motion. He gets run upside down in the corner and takes a big bump through the ropes to the floor from a Hogan knee. He bumps so hard to the floor, and Hogan just stands in place like Bull Buchanan. Killer Khan has to jump to the floor and tell Toguchi to stop selling and get back in the ring because Hogan wasn't budging. Hogan didn't budge until Yatsu ducked instead of taking an axe bomber, but wound up making the spot cooler by getting scalped and stumbling face first into the ropes. Hogan doesn't see it that way and is suddenly Stan Hansen but in a kind of bratty way. Look at the slappy stampy way he tags out after stiffing up Yatsu and hitting his Realest axe bomber. Hogan stiffs up Yatsu and suddenly looks really overpowering, and it stands out as the first time he's looked alive all match. The thing is, that's basically how overpowering Khan looks whenever he is in. Khan is a huge guy who knows how to wrestle big. He's one of the all time great Hogan and Inoki opponents because he could push pace and fall big for stars. But you see Inoki's jawline and pompadour and it's pretty easy to see why he still gets the biggest reaction in Chiba for his loaded up enziguiri. 

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Found Footage Friday: SOLAR IN PANAMA~! GALVEZ~! FUJINAMI~! CANEK~! WOLFIE~! DUNN~!

Solar vs. Sergio Galvez Panama

MD: The first two caidas of this were just ok but the tercera was pretty great. I liked Galvez in general. Sometimes, he'd have a stomp that felt a bit too light, but he was really a good cross-section between scuzzy and bestial. Moreover, he started on the forehead by jumping Solar before the match and never stopped. Honestly, it was such focused mask and wound work that it caused some big problems for Solar later in the match. When his comeback finally arrived, he had to manage keeping his mask on to the point that he couldn't have nearly the fire you'd want. Thankfully, by the start of the tercera, he recovered and battered Galvez around ringside.They really went deep on that one, a ton of submissions and nearfalls and back and forth action. At times, Solar was just yanking Galvez by his shirt into a surfboard. At one point, when Galvez had him in a crab (which he had used to win the primera), Solar patted him on the back to make him think the ref was calling it off, that old trick. Between that and some beard pulls sometimes the match felt like it lived up to the stakes more than others. Solar won both falls with big spinning quebradoras where the ref did just call it, so that was a little weird, but the fans were totally behind it. The segunda definitely felt off here, but they more than made up for it down the stretch.  

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. El Canek 4/23/81

MD: I wasn't too sure about this on paper. Juniors Fujinami vs the World in the late 70s or start of the 80s is almost universally good but Canek tends not to be the most inspired opponent in general. In specific, on this night, however, he had quite the chip on the shoulder. It seemed to stem from the pop Fujinami got as he came out to the Japanese Social Distortion sounding live band that our resident expert (https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/forum/1538-puroresu-history/) thinks was there for Tiger Mask's debut. He tossed his flowers down right at that pop and attacked him right at the bell.

He dominated for most of the match too, even if Fujinami had some awesome comebacks. Early on he dropkicked him right in the face but couldn't follow with a diver. Later on, he repeated it and did get that dive, which itself followed a crazy face first plancha from Canek. Like I said though, this was mostly Canek, just leaning on Fujinami inside and outside of the ring the whole way through as if he really had something to prove. Whenever Fujinami started to come back, he'd just throw his whole body at him: a neckbreaker drop, a front dropkick off the apron, that huge dive. Eventually, Fujinami got absolutely fed up and started on the mask, pulling him around the ring and into the turnbuckle with it. The ref took umbrage and got punched by Fujinami for his trouble. Post match, they kept going at it and if this was Mexico it'd all have led to mask vs hair challenges. Instead they'd have a UWA match in Juarez about a week later, but that I don't think we have. Surprisingly great Canek performance here and good fire from Fujinami at the end.

Wolfie D vs. Steven Dunn (Weapons Match) MCW 12/19/98

MD: We get a solid six minutes of action before things break down here. If I'm not mistaken Wolfie was with Ashley Hudson and Flash Flanagan as the Black Sheep. Dunn was half of the Vols, of course. He gets to the big plastic trash can of weapons first and unloads on Wolfie with a chair and a bat and a crutch, so we get blood immediately. From there, they go back and forth pretty steadily with Wolfie choking Dunn with whatever he can get his hands on and both guys coming back pretty evenly without interesting transitions. That's because it all was leading to a big one, with Dunn lifting a 2 x 4 between Wolfie's legs. He ends up tied in the ropes and is about to get chair shotted into oblivion when Hudson comes out with his boomerang (since he's Australian) and the two Black Sheep completely destroy the ref, a second ref (by tossing the trash can at him) and Dunn until Sawyer makes the save. Pretty good, heated, piece of business to set up some big matches to come. They gave away just enough but not too much given the escalation to come.

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Found Footage Friday: LAWLER~! DUNDEE~! FABS~! BACKLUND~! INOKI~! FUJINAMI~! IRON MIKE~! 87 NJPW 5x5~!

Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Bob Backlund/Iron Mike Sharpe NJPW 5/18/85

MD: There was some bluster between Sharpe and Inoki, as a foreigner punching above his weight class by trying to call Inoki into a match was common for mid-80s NJPW, but this was really about Backlund and Fujinami. You'll get through this and you'll remember their rope running and chain wrestling to a degree, as they were pretty perfectly matched up against one another. You'll probably note the moment when Sharpe and Backlund took over and how Backlund was more aggressive than usual, sportsmanlike but still something of a de facto heel, which is interesting in 85. His running powerslam was especially great. What will stick with you the most - and really what you should watch this for - is the long short arm scissors sequence towards the end. You watch a hundred Backlund matches and half of them, at least, will be about him working towards picking someone up from a short arm scissors. But this was still really well worked, with the fans going up for every attempt and Fujinami believably maintaining control, even if he wasn't the world's heaviest guy. I really love Backlund's footwork and positioning here as he tries to work into the Gotch lift, which is more elaborate than what I remember out of WWF Title era. It feels like a huge deal when he finally muscles Fujinami onto the top rope. Of course, not long after, Sharpe gets kicked in the back of the head by Inoki, but what are you going to do? 

ER: I didn't plan on falling in love with Iron Mike Sharpe over the past year, but I think it's important to follow your heart wherever it might take you. My love of Iron Mike Sharpe has, up until this point, never ventured outside of the States. It hasn't really ventured that far outside of New York State, specifically. I love Sharpe most in his early 90s house and Raw appearances, when he's at his best combination of big bumping stooge and local institution. I've never seen a single Mike Sharpe match from Japan, so this is a very exciting find for me. And whatever my thoughts on the match, you have to love that at one time Sharpe was doing his near constant grunting and growling through a sold out Korakuen main event. Inoki actively avoids Backlund and Sharpe takes on a lot of dirty work, No No No No No'ing his way through an Inoki octopus and several ankle picks that left him defenseless. This was no cheating, stooging Sharpe, this was a guy who shook his head and yelled in submissions while hoping to land big swinging body blows and heavy kneelifts when able to stand. 

The one amusing piece of offense Sharpe got in on Inoki was while Inoki was bending his leg, and Sharpe fought free from the move by clasping both hands around Inoki's chin. Clasping onto Inoki's chin is at least tantamount to tugging on Superman's cape, so I call this a win. The fans were excited to see Backlund, and after this one week New Japan tour his visits would all be separated by periods of several years. Backlund and Fujinami had several singles matches against each other and had nice rhythm. Backlund's headscissors had a nice snap and I like how he bumped dropkicks sideways into the ropes. Their rhythm is most apparent during the short arm scissors sequence, with Backlund working through it with an on the nose promptness. He begins every scissor legged roll through lift attempt at near exact 80 second intervals, with each 80 second stretch containing different obstacles, all building to the successful lift. Sharpe was run over soon after, but I liked his and Backlund's excitingly simple finishing stretch of hard bodyslams. Imagine Bob Backlund and Mike Sharpe representing North America to the fine people of Japan, two weirdos who made a whole nation believe we all constantly make Popeye sounds.  

Elimination: Tatsumi Fujinami/Riki Choshu/Akira Maeda/Kiyoshi Kimura/Super Strong Machine vs. Seiji Sakaguchi/Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Nobuhiko Takada/George Takano/Keiji Mutoh NJPW 10/6/87

MD: This only really gets fifteen minutes bell to bell, which isn't *nearly* enough time for one of these, especially given who's in there. But it does give the match a sort of sprint feel, with a lot of quick action and a lot quick switches. Honestly, this almost felt like a Survivor Series version of a classic New Japan 5x5, only with more violence and harder strikes. It's also a lot more one sided than most of these that I've seen, which sort of makes sense when you realize the murderer's row of NJPW stars on the one side of the ring, and George Takano and Keiji Mutoh on the other. You could have stacked a couple more minutes at almost any point of this and it would have been good wrestling, but where I wish they did more was right at the end. You had Fujinami, Choshu, Maeda, and Kimura all on one side, with only Fujiwara on the other. Fujiwara survived for a bit but even he couldn't last long against those four. Given the numbers game and the lack of big stakes and big narratives, it ended up like the exception that allows for the rule on other elimination matches which all end up as one on one big drama affairs.

Jerry Lawler/Bill Dundee vs. The Fabulous Ones MCW 5/1/99

ER: I had never seen this, and it was so great. The ultimate crowd pleaser, in front of one of those great big Nashville Fairgrounds crowds. It wasn't a super common thing to see Lawler and Dundee tagging, but this crowd couldn't care less because it was WAY less common to see the Fabulous Ones.  They hadn't tagged for nearly 4 years at this point, and neither were what you'd call Active since that last tag. Lane was fully retired and Keirn mostly ran his wrestling school in Florida, occasionally (very occasionally) working. It probably also helped that Lane and Keirn showed up and actually looked good for their age. This wasn't a paunchy retirement tour, these were two guys in their late 40s who looked GOOD for their late 40s. The fans are loud for the Fabs the whole match, and Dundee and Lawler lean into it. Lawler took two great backdrops and would run squealing to Dundee on the apron, and Dundee stooged around for the Fabs, always getting caught with a Lane kick after gloating about something (the best was when he banana peeled after getting his legs swept by Lane while strutting). 

Stacy Carter starts passing a weapon back and forth to Lawler, and it rules. He hits a bunch of great short right uppercuts to Lane. Lawler keeps cutting Lane off from Keirn, and it just makes the fans chant louder for Steve and Stan. We even get an extra tease before Stan makes it over to Steve! I love when the hot tag doesn't come when it looks like it's going to come, and here Lawler knocks Lane into the ropes while Dundee runs all the way around the ring to knock him to the floor. The hot tag to Keirn is hot as expected, and the finish is a perfect fusion of 1999 Jerry Springer wrestling with classic Tennessee: Carter gets on the apron and starts a striptease, drawing all of the Fabs' attention, meanwhile Lawler and Dundee are gathering the high heels that she's thrown. It leads to the hilarious moment of Lawler getting brained by a high heel at the hands of Dundee, and immediately pinned. A heel Lawler/Dundee team against a babyface Fabs was the exact thing I needed, and I wish we had more heel Lawler from this era.

MD: Eric had watched this years ago but it's finally back up again thanks to Bryan Turner. He hit the high points really well, but I'd like to add an overall feeling I had for it. I think there was a certain freedom to Memphis in 1999 that may not have existed ten years earlier. It was always broad, of course, but it was always well aware of its broadness, well aware of what worked for the crowd, but still having to balance that with the understanding of how it was viewed by the rest of wrestling. That meant that even as they had the Bruise Brothers strut around or Kamala tromping through a back yard or the House of Gullen or Hector Guerrero and his chili powder, it never quite let itself go all the way over the top in the ring. They always wanted Lawler to be world champion somehow someday. By this point, though, the ship had sailed, the ambitions had shrunk, and it wasn't even about survival anymore. It was a cherry on top, and that let this match really sing and soar and go wildly over the top in being as Memphis as something could possibly be in all the best ways. It felt like this perfect cross-section of masters still being able to go at a high level and any semblance of forced legitimacy just totally gone from their antics. In short, it was a blast.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JERRY LAWLER

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New Footage Friday: Faulkner~! McMichael~! DUSTY~! MX~! CHOSHU~! RED BULL ARMY~! FUJINAMI~!

Vic Faulkner vs. Mick McMichael WOS 7/1/72

MD: It's not every day we get a new UK match from 72, though, of course, we know there's a lot out there locked in a vault. This was six rounds and generally worked blue eye vs blue eye, with Faulkner more the trickster and McMichael more grounded and dogged. Faulkner had all of his tricks: elaborate escape attempts, "look up" spots, not letting go of the handshake between rounds, and so on, but he let himself get clowned and countered and kept in holds a lot too which made this balanced and even and made those times when one of his tricks did work mean even more. McMichael was a great foil (I don't think base is quite the word here but it's in the right genus of words), patient, steadfast, solid, but also able to take it up not just one but many gears when it was time to. One of the most unique elements of this style of wrestling is that draws can be satisfying and even preferred; Walton indicated at such at the end, that it would have been a shame if either of these wrestlers had to be the loser and you sort of have to agree with him.


Dusty Rhodes/Magnum TA vs. Midnight Express NWA 9/11/86

PAS: This hits every beat you would want out this match. Dusty doing a chicken dance with a rubber chicken stuck in his pants, Cornette taking a big Baby Doll assisted pratfall, Bobby Eaton dinging his awesome punches off of Dusty's skull, Big Bubba standing around looking mean. Just a pitch perfect shtick heavy 80s wrestling match, Dusty is so great in these matches, rock star charisma, pitch perfect timing, signature spots, awesome selling, so awesome. Dusty was past his athletic prime at this point, but man did he know how to squeeze every drop out of the orange. MX are tremendous foils, especially Eaton, lays it in when they need to, but feed and bump their ass off when the time comes. This kind of tag is a perfect bit of business, and these guys did it so well. 

MD: Everything you'd want out of ten minutes of these guys. I loved the opening with the chicken flapping, Bobby's awesome cheapshot punch in the corner and his subsequent flapping, and Magnum trailing right behind him, nailing him, and doing the flapping again to a big pop. There are a few different ways to achieve perfection in wrestling but that's definitely one of them. It was followed immediately by Dusty elbow dropping the rubber chicken which was more transcendent than perfect? Once they rolled over to heat (and given how the fans were going nuts for every bit of stooging BS before it, I wasn't convinced it was going to happen in the first place) with Cornette sneaking in a racket shot on Dusty on the outside, the fans just went nuts. It was southern as it could be with Magnum emotionally drawing the ref and the MX laying in cheapshots not to keep the damage up but to keep Dusty down. His selling was amazingly sympathetic, at one point clinging to the ropes prone and in agony after a racket shot as the Dusty chants rang on neverending. The place became absolutely unglued with the hot tag with everyone on their feet. To be fair, they were popping for everything they should have been the whole match from Dusty elbow dropping a chicken to Magnum taking guys out with the racket at the end. What a show.


Riki Choshu/Tatsumi Fujinami/Kengo Kimura/Osamu Kido/Masa Saito vs. Timur Zalasov/Wahka Evloev/Victor Zangiev/Vladimir Berkovich/Salman Hashimikov NJPW 5/22/89 - GREAT

MD: If I'm figuring this right, this was three days before the big Vader vs. Hashimikov title change and it absolutely served its purpose of heating Hashimikov up for the run. In general, it's 35 minutes of guys grappling, getting positioning for suplexes, hitting those suplexes, and then using said suplexes to lock in holds. That was true with Fujinami and Zalasov who started out, with the two of them setting a good, believable pace until Fujinami broke the code by hitting his suplexes one after another instead of immediately going into a hold with them which wore Zalasov down enough for the dragon sleeper. Kimura felt like the weak link on the Japanese side. There were moments where you thought he might be able to start getting strikes in, but Eveloev caught his leg before he could get momentum going and he was just fighting to get to the ropes again for the last minute or two of their match. Kido and Zangiev came off as very evenly matched until the end when Zangiev got momentum with a series of suplexes in a row (much like Fujinami's in the first bout). Zangiev just got pro wrestling and theatrics a little more than his countrymen.

With the (2-1) stage set, the last two bouts really did the heavy lifting for what they were trying to accomplish. Berkovich targeted Choshu's arm and Choshu sold accordingly, but one thunderous lariat off the ropes and the Scorpion took him down quickly. Then, after back and forth and a struggle that matched the Fujinami and Kido bouts, Saito hit the same pattern on Hashimikov only for him to survive the Scorpion. Saito leveraged that advantage into two Saito suplexes however, but kept going for more instead of pinning him and Hashimikov got under him and dumped him on his head for the win. It felt like a big, triumphant moment, one punctuated with Vader coming out to cut a promo on him before the trophy ceremony. If I was in that crowd, I'd wonder how even Vader might be able to put Hashimikov down.

PAS: Red Bull Army are great, hairy pasty Russian dudes who will just grab and throw anyone they are wrestling. Zalasov, Evolev and Berkovich are the lesser know members of the group and all looked good although didn't leap out the way Zangiev and Hashimikov did. I did really like Evolev's quick fireman's carry into an armbar which took out Kimura. 

Zangiev is a treat to watch, his signature headscissors escape is so cool and such a smart bit of business for a guy who was clearly new to wrestling. Kido is a UWF alumnus and seemed very into working hard grappling with Zangiev. Man when Zangiev puts you away, you go away, some really great looking belly to belly throws which landed Kido awkwardly, and a cradling scissors kick takedown into a kneebar for the tap. Choshu really brought the Choshu in his fight, landing a right hand to the temple, and some big supelexes and a lariat before the tap, he seemed the least willing to play along with Red Bull, and just did him. I love Choshu and it worked. Final match felt like a final match. This was a series of matches with a lot of Saito Suplexes,, but man you can see why the move was named after him, such torque and force. Hashimikov feels like a beast and really can get explosion on his shot, he is at Saito's legs with such speed. Very excited that our friend Loss has dug out so much of the stuff and I am excited to dig in. 

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New Footage Friday: Different Style!!

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Aleksey Tyurin NJPW 7/22/90 - GREAT

PAS: Tyurin is an enormous Judoka, he looked like he might be 6'7 360, spent much of the match with some great looking Judo throws on Hashimoto. It is always fun to watch Hash try to solve a puzzle in these different style fights. The puzzle here was Tyurin's strength and technique and eventually Hash just tries to dirty it up, stunning Tyurin with two nasty short headbutts, dazing the bear enough to get him over with a side suplex and choke him out. Really fun visuals in this match, and while it wasn't tremendously action packed I really found it compelling. 

MD: Tyurin is massive, absolutely massive and he has a lurching way of moving at you with his arms up. The best way that I can explain this is that it's like when a little kid family member comes charging at you because they watched too much wrestling or something, when you're an adult and you have to do everything you can not to lose your balance and fall on them and break them. Tyurin is gingerly not trying to absolutely crush tiny child Hashimoto here. Which is bizarre and surreal. It means that just a headlock takedown seems like it could demolish Hash's kidney and break his ribs though. The flip side was that every movement (and every bit of restraint, I guess) tired Tyurin down more, so all Hashimoto had to do was stay alive long enough. Which he did. The suplex at the end barely works but is still worth seeing, though I'm not sure the choke out works because Tyurin was so large that he'd always be in the ropes. Always.

ER: Yes yes yes, this match is exactly my kind of thing. I adore that we are still finding new weird Russians that Inoki brought in, and I had no clue there were ever any GIANTS wrestling in New Japan Different Style fights. Hashimoto is a large man, and Tyurin absolutely dwarfs him. Tyurin looks like the largest possible Glenn Fleshler, a mammoth judoka who just walks through Hashimoto's strikes and flattens him with what come off like normal judo moves, like a headlock take over or an STO. He's so huge that he makes a headlock takeover look finisher worthy, and it's amazing. At one point he literally approaches Hashimoto and raises both of his arms over his head, and I swear to god he looked exactly like the grizzly bear on the poster of Grizzly. Just a giant man about to bear attack Hashimoto, so Hash kicks him right in the knee and keeps his distance. Tyurin doesn't pretend he is a bear any longer. Hash keeps getting better and better at evading Tyurin's takedowns, slipping out and landing on top, and I thought the build to the final choke was good. Hashimoto powers Tyurin over with a Saito suplex, and it while it was far from the prettiest suplex you've seen, it looks like Hash is moving a damn mountain. I bought the choke as it really looked like Hash was smothering the giant, using Tyurin's size and meaty neck against him. Great stuff. 

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Ramzin Shbiev NJPW 6/12/91 - GREAT

PAS: Shbiev comes out in boxing gloves and shorts, although he doesn't have a Box Rec record. He had decent form, but it didn't really look professional to me. Hashimoto however really knows how to work a match around a Russian guy with Boxing gloves. Hashimoto and Shbiev circle each other for the first couple of rounds, with Shbiev landing some nice body shots. That leads up to an all timer of last minute, with Shbiev dropping Hashimoto with a really nice multi punch combo. Hash realizes he can't stand in the pocket with him, hits two sick looking leg sweeps, and puts his lights all the way out with a sick high kick to the face, Shbiev didn't block it at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if he forgot all of the math he learned in middle school. 

MD: Two rounds of build up leading to one quick round of payoff, but what around it was. The build was measured and disciplined. Shbiev had a pretty clear advantage for the first two rounds, a straight up puncher. Hashimoto was able to slow the torrent with kicks, but whenever he tried to cut the distance and use his size to grab Shbiev, he ate a bunch of blows and the size and momentum necessary for the attempt brought them into the ropes. Towards the end of the second round, Hashimoto seemed to realize that just keeping Shbiev at bay wasn't going to work out and he started going for it with more wild kicks, landing one and knocking him flat. In the third, likewise, Shbiev realized that if Hash was going to do that, he better do something else and he rushed in with a really nasty flurry. They kept one-upping one another as Hash used his reach advantage with sweeping kicks, throwing Shbiev off his game enough that he could get a brutal headlock takeover and then finish it all off with a homerun hitting kick to the face. Just a hugely satisfying last round.

ER: Different Style is the most perfect pro wrestling. The looseness of a fight with the artistry of a performer, Hashimoto was really the true master of the Different Style. Inoki was the pioneer, but Hashimoto was getting these superstar reactions to his theme song because of his incredible Different Style wars. Shbiev comes out wearing long shorts and looks like someone Louis Gossett Jr. had to take down in the latter half of Diggstown, and Hashimoto is an expert at selling all of his strikes. Shbiev is a real interesting puncher, good at mixing up his shots, and Hashimoto is so captivating as someone struggling to find his distance. Shbiev drops him with this hard left to the body, and the longer this goes the more risks both guys take, both elevating their aggression. The final flurry is incredible, always amazing to me how well these non-wrestlers fall when it's time for them to take their wrestling beating. Hashimoto starts brutalizing Shbiev with legsweeps, just giving this poor guy knee problems for life, before finishing everything with a sweeping high kick that just drops him. Different Style God Hashimoto. Get me the t-shirt. 

Akitoshi Saito vs. Michiyoshi Ohara NJPW 2/8/92

MD: Crazy ten minutes of pro wrestling here. Ohara rushes Saito at the start, but Saito's about to outstrike him for most of the match. The great equalizer is that Ohara's better able to take him down and hook him, using the gi, yes, but especially with an absolutely monster capture suplex. He can't put Saito away, though, or even capitalize enough, so this builds to Saito kicking the crap out of him towards the edge of the ring, the two warring sides going at it on the floor, and a massively bloody Ohara trying desperately to get his revenge with a thousand red-streaked headbutts, changing the color of the gi. It's all for naught as Saito puts him down for good, with the post-match swarming of the ring being just as crazy as everything else we've seen here in this ten minutes of violence.

PAS: This was incredible, one of the best matches we have unearthed since we have done this. This is part of the Karate dojo versus New Japan feud, and I clearly need to find every second of this. Easily Ohara's career match, he was working as an amateur in a singlet and has some nice wild throws and takedowns, and Saito is hurling punches and kicks at him the whole time. Ohara also throws some really great looking headbutts, which are especially awesome after he is opened up and spraying blood around the ring. The whole match felt on the precipice of a riot and then it just exploded at the end. Totally awesome.

ER: Incredible, the exact kind of bloodlust you want from a NJPW/Karate Guys war. This is the most charisma I have ever seen Ohara possess, and I love young handsome normal hair Saito. You got a ringside area filled with New Japan tracksuits and karate gi's, and you know that's literally always an oil/water scenario. Ohara was super aggressive here, running down to the ring like he was Ultimate Warrior in a freestyle wrestling singlet and hits a double leg without slowing down, and then it's just several minutes of Ohara throwing Saito with STOs and other takedowns while Saito throws downward blow karate strikes and damaging kicks. Saito's kicks are really starting to slow Ohara, as they are relentless, and both guys seem to be playing VERY fast and loose with rope break rules. There were two different moments where each guy made it to the ropes to break a hold, and the rope break did not slow down the man applying the submission, merely giving them an opening to drag their opponent away from the ropes and continue choking or ripping at an arm. 

The oil and water of course mix on the floor, and New Japan guys start flying into karate guys, and it's one of those things that's always fun for me to go back and rewatch over and over, finding new guys to focus on each time. I think my favorite was a karate guy getting in Shiro Koshinaka's face, while Koshinaka completely brushes him off with stoicism and an elbow. Ohara is busted open and it only makes him madder, and he runs into the ring dripping blood and throwing nothing but smashing machine headbutts at Saito. Saito just tries to keep his cool and throw as many kicks as he can, all while Ohara is trying to smash him with his body and skull. Saito's gi gets covered in Ohara's blood splatter, making Saito look like he went to the Spirit Store and bought a "crime scene" costume. Ohara eventually cannot answer the bell, and then the oil and water mixes again as the karate guys are trying to swarm around Saito while the New Japan guys want to go at it. Again, another moment where I go back and rewatch multiple times, focusing on a different NJ guy each time. Look at the absolute babyface FIRE that Satoshi Kojima shows by repeatedly flying into karate guys to shove them out of the ring, total megastar charisma. Look at the veteran boldness of Osamu Kido as he casually wipes blood off his track suit! There is no wrong guy to look at here, in this best of all wrestling feuds. 

Akitoshi Saito vs. Shiro Koshinaka NJPW 2/12/92

MD: Impossible not to compare it to the Saito/Ohara match. This was longer, with less urgency. The blood wasn't as good. The suplexes (except for Koshinaka's last capture off a kick) were more cooperative. Once he really started to unload midway through, Saito had some great strikes, especially a jumping spin kick towards the end. Koshinaka was simply more of a showman than Ohara and he milked the ten counts and other moments better, but that's not always what you want in a match like this. The post match was a bit more meandering, with guys throwing shadow spin kicks at each other. It felt a little more like West Side Story than a war at times.

PAS: I thought this was also pretty great, although it was obviously hurt by watching it after the Ohara masterpiece. This had a lot of the wild brawling you love from this match up, with Saito being a crazed killer, and Koshinaka landing some really stiff hip attacks and big punches. This was a bit longer and wasn't turned up to 11 the whole match, but it definitely had it's frenzied moments, and I am loving Saito blooding up his Gi with the New Japan roster. Clearly I need to find and watch every released match in this feud, I love an out of control Puro gang fight. 

ER: This was more of a slow burner than Saito's fight against Ohara a few days earlier, but it was really no less good. Koshinaka brings a totally different vibe than Ohara brought, and stretches it into a more interesting story and longer payoff. I think almost all of us would pick the Ohara match if we wanted to just show one of these to someone, but this match had a great feel and strong build in a totally different way. I honestly have no idea how Saito didn't go on to become an even bigger star. He's someone we've seen in major Japanese feds for 30 years now, always a positive presence on cards but never the top guy. It's almost crazier that he didn't become Naoya Ogawa before Ogawa or Maeda after Maeda. 

The match is a long scrap that looked like it hit as hard in minute one as it did in the final minute. Koshinaka's sliding knees and hip attacks looked great, Saito's front kicks looked great, and this Koshinaka is really my most favorite Koshinaka. He had this calm cool to his attacks and took a hard kick beating in stride. At one point he caught a very fast Saito high kick, and he had this awesome measured facial reaction to it, like he knew exactly the three things he should do next. The way he casually stretches Saito into a single leg crab was like a Dojo Terminator firing up its mission. Saito comes back and starts wearing him down, and we get a cool fiery restart after it looked like Koshinaka wouldn't be able to continue. It's cool seeing guys like 2 Cold Scorpio rooting Koshinaka on from the apron, and he had a super memorable babyface dying on his sword run to the finish. Saito bloodies up the knee of his gi from trying to flatten Koshinaka's nose several times (by the end of the match Koshinaka has visible bruising under both eyes and his forehead), and I loved the shots Koshinaka was still able to fit in. His final stand was perfectly timed, getting to his feet right as he was counted down, and remaining on his feet in defeat. 

The post-match was of course another memorable fight between dojos, with Kuniaki Kobayashi leading the charge into punching a ton of karate guys in the face, and what I loved the most about it was New Japan Dojo basically heeling themselves during the beatdown. The crowd wasn't reacting to them as "their guys" by the end of this, and Koshinaka and Kobayashi were left looking at each other with the kind of sheepish looks of men who know they were the ones who pushed things too far. Koshinaka drags Aoyagi into the ring and Kobayashi comes in and jumps him from behind, none of the other karate guys are in there, it's just Koshinaka and Kobayashi hitting cheap shots, and Aoyagi is just like "guys come on, this doesn't need to happen like this". It was great, a different vibe from a familiarly excellent cast. 

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Richard Byrne NJPW 7/8/92

MD: Compared to the other matches we watched this week, this was pretty ridiculous, but it also told the most complete story and it was sort of serene as well. For the first half, Byrne had the clear advantage on strikes, with Fujinami's selling getting them over, especially the spin kick to the gut. He had a few good moments of grappling, including almost getting the dragon sleeper on, but it was, at best even. Then, midway, Fujinami stops everything, demands gloves of his own, and comes out firing blows to the crowd's delight. Byrne, suddenly losing the striking game, has to come back with big kicks, but overstretches with it and goes tumbling over the top rope. They start fighting on the floor and he kicks the post, and it's all but over from there. This had an almost anime-esque mid-match power up with the gloves. But, since it was Fujinami, and the crowd was so into it, and he just rushed into it with so much earnest abandon, it pretty much worked.

ER: I love wrestling after the fact stories like Richard Byrne, a Massachusetts indy guy who ran a dojo in the same building as Killer Kowalski's school, who got this random match as a martial arts guy on a New Japan show, and also was a cult star in South Africa of all places. That's a cool as hell person and there's never been a better more interesting time in wrestling than these New Japan Different Style fights. Imagine if WWF was bringing in random MMA or weightlifting or decathlete guys, like they just kept the spirit of the Yokozuna bodyslam challenge and carried it through the 90s with all their biggest stars. WWF could have believably made Different Style fights the biggest focus of their 90s, and I think it would have been a more successful direction. Byrne was totally new to me here, and he's like Garry Shandling doing a Jerry Flynn character. It's great, the perfect early 90s strip mall dojo vibes. 

Byrne is such a sneering punk, with this big comical cartoon expression on his face that made him feel like a Punch Out! character. Fujinami was brilliant at selling his kicks, and honestly Byrne was great at selling for Fujinami's big late match strikes. There are great moments like Fujinami locking in the dragon sleeper around Byrne's huge head, or Byrne angrily tearing off his gloves and throwing them to the mat, then Fujinami demanding he be put INTO gloves before the 3rd round starts. Fujinami comes out with his fighter gloves and starts peppering Byrne, frustrating him with quickness, and it became a whole different Different Fight at that point. I thought Fujinami was going to end it with his great rear naked choke, but Byrne convincingly back elbows his way out of it. I LOVED Byrne's two bumps over the top to the floor, one a silly "Macho Man getting press over the top by a Yokozuna kickout" bump off a Fujinami uppercut, the other a missed kick momentum sending him down. Byrne adds some of those fun pro wrestling elements to this early 90s New Japan fight feel, including hanging from the bottom rope by one leg after eating a Fujinami enziguiri while trying to get back into the ring. The finish feels downright Memphis, with Fujinami getting a heel hook and Byrne stuck with nowhere to go, ripping his gloves off and throwing each of them at Fujinami, that felt like a glimpse of how Austin Idol would have worked one of these matches. 

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New Footage Friday: FUJIWARA! KIMURA! FUJINAMI! MAEDA! NAVARRO! SOLAR! KATO! DIABLO!

Tatsumi Fujinami/Kengo Kimura/Shiro Koshinaka vs. Akira Maeda/Nobuhiko Takada/Yoshiaki Fujiwara NJPW 3/1/86 - GREAT

MD: The handheld nature of this one let us really hear the crowd, and they were super into this. The makeup of these wrestlers and this feud meant that there was so much anticipation for almost every exchange; just a constant feeling out process that got the fans ready for the payoff of the actual contact each and every time, which almost never disappointed. Whenever one of the NJ guys would switch in, the fans switch the chant for them like clockwork. The first minute or two was really fun as Fujiwara controlled the center of the ring and drew people in however he could (including a slap punch in the corner) and then just dominated on the mat. Lots of brutal kicks from the other two UWF guys and a healthy amount of Koshinaka getting tossed around. Towards the end, the NJ team figured out they could hold an advantage with some teamwork but it broke down pretty quickly into a chaotic and violent scene.

PAS: New Japan versus UWF maybe the greatest in ring feud in wrestling history, and it is a real mitzvah to get another installation. Unsurprisingly I loved Fujiwara in this, swaggering badass who is so slick in the way he counters attacks by all three New Japan guys. Fujiwara and Fujinami tragically never had a singles match during this period, but they were incredible dance partners, and had some very cool exchanges here. Maeda really ramps up the violence in the end of the match pinning Fujinami against the ropes and winging kicks, including a headkick which felled him like an oak tree. Love Akira starting the 10 count with the rent, felt like the kind of taunt Alan Iverson might do. Finish was a wild breakdown and the crowd was going bonkers. Great stuff, super glad it showed up. 

Solar/Stuka Jr./El Gallo vs. Negro Navarro/Barbaro Cavernario/Rafaga CMLL GDL 12/1813

MD: It's been a while since I watched any 2013 lucha even though that was probably the height of my writing about it here and this was a mix of comfort food overlaid with maestros. The Rafaga vs Gallo pairing wasn't much (and good on Solar for clapping for them from the apron; nice guy) and Cavernario and Stuka went all out with their primera pairing but for less than a minute. The primera then was therefore all about the five minutes we got of Solar vs Navarro, which had all of the charm and skill you'd want out of these two in this setting. About half the time, it shifted to a close-up, high quality camera shot which really let you see what was going on. My favorite bit was early on when Solar hooked Navarro's arm with his legs and took him over into a cross arm breaker and Navarro responded by waving his hand in a "Yeah, that was so-so, I guess" sort of manner. Cavernario wasn't in much here but whenever he was he brought a ton of energy and motion. He let Solar catch him head-on to set up the finish and post-match everyone posed together. Hopefully we get more like this soon.

ER: This was really fun, and I loved some of our HD camera angles that we got. I always love seeing Solar and Navarro play their hits live, as they never play them exactly the same. Most of the highlights of this were Solar/Navarro, and while I wish we had gotten actual significant Stuka/Navarro and Barbaro/Solar interaction, I loved all of our maestros. Solar broke out a few tricks that are super impressive for a guy in his late 50s, and I thought he was excellent at playing into Navarro's subs. Like Matt, my favorite moment came when Solar totally caught Negro, flipped him halfway across the ring with a leg drag, and Navarro sat there on his butt, doing a 50-50 ehhhhhh shaky hand. I love the way they tangle their legs, and each knows the right amount of pressure to apply to not slip out of holds and made them look strong. Stuka and Barbara looked really exciting when they were in. Barbaro came off hyper and fun (and skinny!), and Stuka's rana, handspring headscissors on the floor to Rafaga, and his match finishing torpedo splash all looked great. I love nearly every Navarro/Solar match I see, but I think I like this format more. It gives the two maestros natural breaks while keeping the match centered around their work. We get some entertaining sideshows, and seeing brief flashes of them working with their younger new partners, then they come back to escalate their own personal 30+ year battle. 

PAS: Solar vs. Navarro is something we have in numerous variations, but it is cool to see a 2013 version pop up with both guys in their 50s not in their 60s. There is still some athleticism in their exchanges, not just pure skill, grab an arm, grab a leg spin counter, reverse. They always have a new wrinkle or two in their game, although here this really felt like a them doing their thing for a different audience. Everyone else in this match was fine, and Stuka Jr. has one of the great top rope splashes of all time, but this was getting to watch two Jazz greats noodle away and that is a pleasure.

Shigeo Kato vs. Diablo Mumejuku Pro 2/5/17

SR: By god, is Segunda Caida the Shigeo Kato superfan blog now?! Diablo is a guy who is also around for a really long time, he was a +20 year veteran in this match. This was the best Diablo match I’ve seen, as it is a bloody brawl, which was worked exactly like how a bloody brawl should be worked. Kato was a part time wrestler at this point and for a guy who was a skinny ratboy in his heyday, he seemed to have no muscle mass at all here, but he could still go like a wrestler. Really loved how he just stomped on Diablos face during the opening brawling portion. Then an exposed turnbuckle comes into play and Kato is soon bleeding all over the place. Katos selling was a millions bucks here as he looked to be hanging on by a thread (maybe he was also legit blown up) . I’m not going to pretend Diablo was brilliant, but he knew exactly what to do, punch the cut and waffle Kato with a chair out of nowhere. There’s an actually great Figure 4 Leglock spot and the ending felt appropriately murderous. Not gonna see these guys are superworkers, but I respect them for producing a match like this even with little athletic ability. Proof that structure is everything.

MD: Nice focused brawl. I have no idea who these guys are. Kato took it to Diablo early, working the mask. I loved the ref bump where Diablo caught Kato's kick and spun it into the ref's groin. High comedy there. After that, he landed a low blow on Kato and pulled the corner guard off and just unloaded on Kato. Once he got him upon with his chain, the woundwork was incredibly on point. He got a lot of value rubbing his head against the top rope, more than you'd think, but it felt pretty nasty. I liked Kato's hope spot where he went to the top and shouted woo just to get thrown off. He finally took over by taking out Diablo's leg, though they went away from it before long and Kato shouted out "Brainbuster!" like he was pointing into the stands for a home run and then couldn't hit it. A for bloody effort though. Lost focus towards the end but some great woundwork and it didn't wear out its welcome.

PAS: I thought this was cool shit, a couple of guys who have been around for a long time, beating on each other like veterans do. All of the stuff with Diablo and the chain was sick, there was some real thump on those punches, and his opening a cut punches with the fist would have made Harley Race proud. Kato had good fire as a bleeding old guy coming back with vim and vigor, and really took it to Diablo in the early going. I want to see all the variations of this feud, really feels like something a territory could work around the horn for months.

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New Footage Friday: PATTERSON! VALENTINE! FUJINAMI! SAKAGUCHI! SCORPIO! MERCURY! BLACK MAGIC! VAMPIRO!

Seiji Sakaguchi/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Pat Patterson/Greg Valentine 1/1/79

MD: Obviously, one element of what we do here on Fridays as we delve into rare and lost footage is see wrestlers that not a lot of footage exists of. It's hard not to compare them against their reps. Sometimes they live up to the rep, sometimes they fall far short, and sometimes they far exceed it. Patterson's rep is amazingly high and he always lives up to it. He was great in the early eighties when he was obviously past his prime. He's fantastic in what bits of him we have in the 70s. You can only imagine were we to stretch back farther. I wouldn't say that's the case with the Ray Stevens footage we have, actually. You can see vague glimpses of the sort of heat he might have gotten once, before his body broke down from his in-ring style and his out-of-ring lifestyle. But with Patterson, there's just so much he brought to the table that everything you add on to the capabilities we see in his post-prime footage is just that, an addition to the greatness.

We come in at the 3 minute mark here. First half of the match is Valentine and Patterson getting advantages on Fujinami with Sakaguchi coming in to clean house. Second half, they take out Sakaguchi's leg and demolish it until the DQ finish and the continued demolishing post-match where they alternate bombs aways and elbow drops onto the leg. Valentine and Patterson make a really solid unit, both laser focused. Patterson is able to go from stooging and bumping to absolutely beating the crap out of someone on a dime. He was legitimate and tough while also being entertaining (lots of jawing with the ref or his opponent) and creative. Sakaguchi really used his size well here. Just huge presence which made it mean all the more when he played vulnerable towards the end.

PAS: The more I watch of him, the more Greg Valentine moves up my list of all time favorite wrestlers, what a vicious grinding killing machine he is at his best. Patterson and Valentine make a great team, giving when they need to give and taking all that they can take. Patterson could bring the violence as well, and had a more theatrical bumping style. The finish run where they destroy Sakaguchi's leg was some truly brutalizing stuff, it really looked like the kind of thing which would send Seiji out of the territory for six months. I am not sure how much Patterson and Valentine teamed, but man were they badasses, I could really see them running roughshod on a territory for a year laying out all comers. 

ER: This really gave us the look at an all time team that never actually was. Valentine/Patterson wasn't a team I've ever thought about before, but seeing them together here (and they didn't really team or face each other that many times other than this New Japan tour) and they are a really natural, vicious team. Patterson is just as savage as Valentine, which I wasn't totally expecting. I've seen plenty of Patterson, but he seemed especially mean here, coming off like a bigger bumping Valentine. When the match started I thought it would be Valentine throwing leather while Patterson took the bumps, instead we basically got two Valentines. Patterson did bump big, taking Fujinami's armdrags faster and harder than any junior heavyweight, and hitting back way harder. Patterson was really great at taking offense, loved how he worked under Sakaguchi (like running neck first into a strong chokehold), and I was really into the hell Patterson and Valentine unleashed on Sakaguchi's leg. Patterson's top rope kneedrop looked incredible, and I was really impressed by the go go go pace they all kept up. This felt like more of a modern indy tag structure worked by tough dudes, kind of anachronistic but impressive to see such a fast pace from some bruisers. We get 15+ minutes of tag team wrestling, but the tags from both sides come so quickly that it felt like we got twice as much action as we actually did. Patterson and Valentine also added Dusty to their team a couple of times on this same tour, and the thought of those three killer blonds on the same team makes my head spin. What a great find. 

Vampiro Casanova vs. Black Magic 10/93

MD: A rarity here, a lucha cage match where you can actually tell what's going on. There are basically two things going on here. One, young ladies love Vampiro. Two, Black Magic fills his time fairly well by beating him around the ring and slamming him into the cage. Look, Vampiro garnered a lot of support without a ton of talent. I think he's fairly good at writhing about in his selling here and he bleeds when he's supposed to, but his bumping is stilted and his offense more so. Smiley is a guy who disappoints me as much as not in 90s lucha matches, but overall, this worked. And full credit to Smiley, because he did the heavy lifting. He kept things vicious and compelling. He gave Vampiro hope spots that worked in the cage and then cut them off. The girls were going to pop for literally anything Vampiro managed to do, so that helped matters along. For the most part, they avoided big spots and kept it to Smiley laying things in (which looked really good half the time and less so the other half) and making use of the cage. When they went big, like Vampiro's bump off the top, it didn't go nearly as well. Vampiro should have built to using the cage more in his comeback too. That would have maybe made the finish - which was a little too opportunistic and banana peel for a cage match - probably work a little better. It's lucha, so the end goals could be different. If this was like a supre libre match on the road to a hair match, that'd be one thing, but I don't see any results along those lines. Still, as a stand alone experience, I'd put this in the "almost worked" category, mostly for Smiley. But don't short change the girls in the crowd.

PAS: I thought this was legitimately awesome, huge disconnect between Matt and me on this match. Vampiro isn't any great shakes as a wrestler, but he had a monster superstar presence and wasn't afraid to take a big beating and bleed a bunch, and what more do you need in a cage match. Smiley was really vicious pounding him with hard punches and kicks and grinding Vampiro's face into the cage. When it came time for Vamp to make his comeback, Smiley really flew around the ring bumping for him, he eats an awesome looking released vertical suplex (which may have just been Vampiro losing him on the move but it looked great), and we have a big triumphant Vampiro climb over the top of the cage. This was like the best version of a Bruno WWWF cage match, and it is wild to see Vampiro at his rock star peak. Might be my favorite lucha cage match ever, which is not a giant bar to clear but still says something. 

ER: I'm definitely closer to Phil than Matt on this one, I thought this was great. Lucha cage matches are some of the worst matches in wrestling, and this may be the only one I've seen that is actually better than its on paper potential. Often, lucha cage matches nearly eliminate the most interesting aspects of any luchador involved, but this match enhances both men. Black Magic's strengths are his strikes, Vampiro's strength is getting girls to cheer for him. It's a format that plays to their strengths and that's all you need for a strong match. Smiley is a known tough guy (basically anyone who worked UWF is clearly a tough guy) but you don't usually get to see him in ass kicker mode. Here he really kicks Vampiro's ass around the ring, push kicking his head a couple dozen times and throwing great right hands to bust Vampiro open. Smiley really kicks him around for 10 minutes, with my favorite being a sliding kick from his back right into Vampiro's jaw, looked like something cool Inoki would do. Smiley sells big for Vampiro's comeback, right after scraping Vamp's face across the cage (I might be reading too much into it, as Vamp had already been bleeding at that point, but his comeback had a fun "not the face!" energy to it). This really did feel like Pedro Morales working an MSG cagematch against Blassie, which was not a comparison I was expecting to make going in. The girls screamed as Vampiro tossed Smiley around (loved how Smiley took a teeter totter, flinging himself across the ring), and I don't recall a lucha cage match having a beginning/middle/end as satisfying as this one. 


2 Cold Scorpio vs. Joey Mercury PWU 9/15/07

PAS: The actual parts of this match that were wrestling, were pretty cool. They started off with some grappling, including an awesome spot where Scorp breaks a side headlock, by throwing an uppercut right to Mercury's knee. They also did some fun leverage stuff around a knuckle lock. Dan Severn is seconding Mercury for some reason, and the really lay in the interference thick in the middle of the match. Leading to a ref bump and run ins by DDP, Devon Moore and Sandman. These two have another match and I imagine with less mishigas it might be a lot better.

MD: A lot to enjoy here. Mercury just seemed very sure in his skin here. A lot of confidence, a lot of antics. I'm not sure I'd say he came off like a star, but he absolutely came off like a pro wrestler who really understood the power of his actions. Who wouldn't want to have Dan Severn out there as his hired gun/coach? He made the most of it, stalling to get advice, having him choke on the outside, utilizing some submission stuff he might not do otherwise, etc. Scorpio, like always, had the fairly unique ability to make offense that shouldn't work on paper look really good and make complete sense. Living in the late 90s/00s, it was really easy to get sick of finishes like this, but when you don't have to deal with them multiple times a month, you can appreciate them for their merits. It would have been even better if this set up a six man tag the next month.

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